How do we write the history of a Fulvia?Footnote 1 Daughter of Sempronia and a nobody (Bambalio), wife of three populist politicians (Clodius, Curio, Marcus Antonius) and mother of Claudia (uxor Caesaris) and four ill-fated boys, she was, for a while, the femina princeps in Rome. She endured numerous crises, exercised extraordinary power during Marcus Antonius’ triumvirate and earned the enmity of many. A divisive figure, she was attacked by Cicero in his Philippics in 44 and 43 bce, by Hortensia in a public oration in 42, by insults on inscribed sling bullets during the Perusine War of 41 and 40, and by the young Caesar (future Augustus) in a sexually abusive poem. At the same time, Fulvia was feasibly the first Roman woman to be commemorated on coinage in the late 40s. After her defeat in the Perusine War, she was abandoned by her husband and died of an illness in Sicyon in 40; her death was convenient for Marcus Antonius and the young Caesar, as she was blamed for the whole affair, and the two were reconciled, with Marcus Antonius being betrothed to Octavia. In death, she became a negative example of female power, irrevocably linked with the triumviral proscriptions, Cicero’s ignominious death and the desecration of the latter’s corpse. Indeed, for Orosius Fulvia’s potestas symbolised the very transformation of consular rule to monarchy (Oros. 6.18.17). Reconstructing the life of such a woman is difficult, not least because of contemporary receptions.
With this new biography D. does an admirable job of peeling away the many layers of ancient and modern invective and offering us a glimpse of a remarkable woman living in remarkable times. Building on C. Schultz’s superb monograph (Fulvia: Playing for Power at the End of the Roman Republic [2021]) and the wealth of scholarship on Roman women, D. delivers an engaging overview of Fulvia’s contexts, experiences, relations, political activity and legacy, one that is accessible to students, scholars and the informed public alike. From the ashes of male anxieties, D.’s Fulvia emerges as a shining example of the many female political actors of the Republic, women such as Cornelia and Servilia, who had their own agendas and ideologies long before Livia exercised her potestas (Vell. Pat. 2.130.5).
This well-illustrated volume contains maps of Rome and its empire, Fulvia’s family tree, a timeline, a note on Roman naming conventions, an introduction, twelve chapters, a conclusion, an appendix on ancient sources on Fulvia, a bibliography, endnotes and an index. The introduction and the first four chapters (‘Fulvia’s World’, ‘Fulvia’s Family’, ‘Fulvia’s Childhood’ and ‘The Ideal Roman Woman?’) provide the background to Fulvia’s life, her contexts, and the gendered expectations, norms and stereotypes she faced. The next seven chapters (‘Fulvia as a Wife’, ‘The First Tribune’, ‘The Second Tribune’, ‘The Third Tribune’, ‘The Triumvir’, ‘Fulvia’s War’ and ‘Fulvia’s Last Act’) cover Fulvia’s adult life, from her marriage to Clodius c. 58, through her subsequent marriages to Curio and Marcus Antonius, political activity, her role in the Perusine War, and finally her death in 40 and its aftermath. The final chapter and the conclusion (‘Fulvia’s Children’ and ‘Fulvia’s Legacy’) trace the lives of Fulvia’s children, her legacy and exemplarity, and her limited representation in contemporary media.
D.’s narrative begins in medias res in 52, with a rich description of various dire prodigia, Clodius’ murder on the Via Appia by Milo’s gang, Fulvia’s innovative display of her husband’s corpse to the people, and the subsequent rioting and transformation of the Curia Hostilia into Clodius’ funerary pyre (pp. 1–6). The subsequent four chapters clearly situate Fulvia within her milieu, with lucid overviews of Roman girlhood, education and marriage (pp. 37–52), and of the female exempla (e.g. Lucretia, Verginia, Quinta Claudia), norms, institutions and male anxieties that shaped her experiences (pp. 53–64).
The engaging opening sets the stage for Fulvia’s apparent exceptionality, leading to D.’s proposal that she ‘wanted more than the normal lot of an elite Roman woman … to be a shy and retiring wife and mother, and a silent helpmeet to her husband and sons’ and that she ‘amassed a degree of political and military power unprecedented for a woman’ (p. 6). For D., ‘even the highest-status women were kept far from the reins of power simply by virtue of their sex and gender’ (p. 6). Certainly, elite Roman women had various gendered expectations and restrictions enshrined in mos and ius. Yet, Fulvia’s peers were not so removed from political power. As citizens, they held public priesthoods and religious roles, participated in banquets, meetings and networks, and exerted influence over magistrates, decrees and laws. Their property rights and wealth were also substantial, and they had redoubtable legal and religious knowledge. Key examples of earlier political activity include Pomponia’s religious canvassing (Polyb. 10.4.4–9), Sulpicia’s advisory role in a consular quaestio of 186 (Livy 39.11.4–14.3), Quarta Hostilia’s intervention in the consular elections of 180 (Livy 40.37.5–7), Cornelia’s involvement in her sons’ careers and legislation (Nepos, fr. 59 M.; Plut. C. Gracch. 4.2–3; 13.2; Ti. Gracch. 8.5) and Sempronia’s consilium in 63 (Sall. Cat. 40.5). In stressing what is exceptional about Fulvia we must not forget her formidable foremothers. Moreover, by arguing that her fault was daring ‘to step outside the confines of the domestic sphere’ (p. 7), we neglect the politics of the elite domus, with its consilia, convivia and salutationes, and the public visibility of elite women in sacra publica (Polyb. 31.26), in epigraphic leges and senatus consulta (CIL I2 593; X 104), and in monuments (CIL VI 10043; 30899). D. rightly stresses that scholars have produced contradictory portraits of Fulvia, which swing between optimistic and pessimistic visions of her agency, but overlook the means for resolving these differences (pp. 10–11).
The next seven chapters chart Fulvia’s political career, moving from her securing of the pontifex L. Pinarius Natta’s assistance in Clodius’ consecration of Cicero’s house, through her display of Clodius’ body and testimony at Milo’s trial (pp. 81–9), her brief marriage to Curio (pp. 91–106), her growing power and political activity after her marriage to Marcus Antonius (pp. 107–124), her ascendance and opportunism during the triumvirate, her rejection of her peers in 42, her rule in Rome in 41 (pp. 125–40), to her fateful role in the Perusine War and its repercussions (pp. 141–68). Many pages are devoted to her peers, husbands’ careers and imaginative reconstructions, meaning we occasionally lose sight of Fulvia. What emerges clearly is that she was but one of several women whose power grew along with the rise of the dynasts (e.g. Servilia, Fausta, Mucia Tertia), and whose agency, for good or ill, was matched by many during the triumviral proscriptions (pp. 133–9).
The closing chapters illuminate the fates of Fulvia’s children, who faced obscurity (Claudia), death by the incipient princeps (Curio, Antyllus) or favour followed by scandal under the Principate (Claudius, Iullus) (pp. 169–77); the extent to which Fulvia became an example to imitate or avoid for feminae principes like Octavia, Livia, the Iuliae and the Agrippinae (pp. 179–90); and her marginalisation in contemporary media, including TV series (Cleopatra, HBO’s Rome) and video games (Dante’s Inferno) (pp. 190–3). D. leaves us with an image of a woman who prospered amidst chaos, who suffered and mistreated others, and whose demonisation reveals the double standards in sources and scholarship.
To return to my beginning: how do we tell Fulvia’s story? Firstly, by challenging the assumption that Roman women were powerless or invisible. Secondly, by recognising that not all were victims or even virtuous. We should let them be bad – sed pecasse iuvat and all that. Finally, we must embrace their complexities. For if we acknowledge Fulvia’s ambiguities and flaws, as we would with a Sulla or a Caesar, we can tell a much richer version of Rome’s history, in which a few women amassed extraordinary power and wealth, forever transforming their Republic.
